


Last Journey

by Spare_Sidekick



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 01:47:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4460618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spare_Sidekick/pseuds/Spare_Sidekick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a Fantasy world, a young man abandons the life he knows to take up with his boyhood crush, in a world where such is forbidden</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Journey

He was fire itself. He coursed through the air, filling it with his life, and every beat of his heart lit the night sky, turning it into flashes of dawn. And then like any fire, it sputtered and died.  
And that was an end.  
I would suppose the benefit of being lame was always that I would never be taken by soldiers to fight in their little wars. At 14 I could have been strong enough to heft a sword, or spear, or at least carry someone’s shield across the plains of Ahki Bashta. But a horse had stood on my leg when I was 6, and it had never healed *quite* right. So when soldiers came to our little country village looking for fresh meat for the war effort, I watched childhood friends become draftee’s while I was left behind with the old or infirm. My Brother was drafted while young. He was a strapping lad of 14, when soldiers pulled him from our Mother and threw him in cart to ‘become a man’. My sister Volunteered when next the recruiters came by, sword already in hand.  
But I was weak. Judged unfit even for the press gang. This is something I am abundantly grateful for, as it would have killed my mother to lose all her children in a handful of a years. I remember holding my sister before she left. Her Tabard, emblazoned with the seal of the Holy Church, it was the only new clothing I had seen her in. She was the best of all people. And she was leaving me.  
‘Don’t cry Ryann’ she said. ‘I was never meant to be a farmer. Neither are you. I have to leave you and Mother, or my path is going to be set in muck and mud until I die. I’m off to Kill heathens, and devil worshippers.’  
‘My sister is Mighty.’ I said, smiling through my tears  
‘..And my cause is just. Fear not brother. I will wear the braids of Fallen Sorcerers as a trophy. Someday, I’ll bring them back, bearing a hundred war stories.’  
‘Just come back someday.’  
‘As long as you keep Mother safe’  
It was that promise that held me to the farm, long after she had marched away. I would not leave, and we would meet up again someday.  
Lucky for me. For if I had left, I would never have met Tomas. 

I first met Tomas in my neighbour’s orchard. He was a dirty, dishevelled child, roughly my own age, with scruffy blue grey hair that fell into his eyes, and clothes spun from canvas and burlap. I Knew of him, or more precisely I knew of his mother, an wandering woman from the eastern wastes who came to town beaten and bloody a half decade ago dragging her starving boy. As an Easterner, everyone was suspicious of her and her foreign ways, but it was mighty hard to turn away a woman and child, especially in their state. After that, they did not vanish so much as fade from view. She moved into an abandoned shack in the hills and would venture into town with fresh skins and suspect cured meat for sale every month or so. Just in time to give her boy a haircut. She never married, nor made much of a real connection with the townsfolk, mostly keeping her secrets to herself. And her Boy. Her son, Tomas, had the blood of a thief it was said. He would be found in town on nights, scrambling up walls or scuttling through the gullies near one of the farms. Nothing serious ever got stolen, but it made him and his mother decidedly unpopular.  
I did not know who he was at first glance. He was just a dishevelled boy with long, supple limbs which had outgrown the tattered, threadbare cuffs of his makeshift outfit. He must have been within the upper branches of an apple tree, and it was the sound of apples dropping through the branches, and into the accumulated leaves below that first caught my attention.  
“Who’s there?” I called out. I had half expected it to be a possum, but it was it was just as likely some urchin come for free fruit. After all, that was what I was there to do on a Lazy Sunday afternoon. But this had surprised him, and in doing so he lost grip and fell into the leaves with a thump that took his breath away. He took my breath away in turn.  
In stunned silence we looked at each other. He was winded and still in a little shock, but true to his nature, he still grasped a stolen apple in his grubby hand. I was just simply marvelling at him, and my young heart beat swiftly within my chest.  
“Kareyzhu” he uttered, his eyes wide in fright. My crutch caught fire, burning from the midsection, and charring it straight through. Of course I fell into the leaves, and for the briefest of moments we lay stunned in a bed of leaves together.  
And then he bounded away. I wouldn’t speak to my Thief of apples again for 6 years.

That he was of sorcerous blood was a surprise to no one, and of course such speculation began almost instantly about his mother that she found the need to make visits to town with much less frequency. Over the years, men with pitchforks, clubs and the occasional sword went looking for the “Witch of Hill Cabin” and her “Devil born childe” but all returned saying the house was abandoned. Some would say that hot meals were found on the table and ashes were still warm in the hearth but no person was ever found.  
And of course, things still went missing from people’s homes and stores, though no thief was ever found.  
But I could find him. It was always subtle. A footfall, a shadow passing. But I knew he would lurk around the farm. As time went on, he remained subtle, but just a little less cautious. I would find his footprints outside my window and I would catch him starring, ever so briefly, as I did my chores in the field. And over the years, as I grew, so did he, growing longer, taller. All the while keeping a boyish face with sad grey eyes.  
I swore, I even felt him at my mother’s funeral. It was fleeting, but I heard a soft sobbing as the priests performed their rituals.  
In the summer when I turned 20, I had taken Mothers farm after her passing, and sold half to my neighbour, so he could expand his orchard, and I contented myself with farm work. I was even betrothed to Jenny, a lovely girl who adored my woodcarving and my simple poetry, though I had never felt any great romantic inclinations in return.  
I first heard the noise in my attic as I was bedding down for the night. I will confess I had had a few wines, and was somewhat muddled, but the double thump from upstairs seemed very much too loud for a possum. I grabbed a poker from the fire, stopping only to note that it had relit itself from ashes, and then I headed upstairs.  
“Who’s there? I called out, as I advanced up the stairs. The fire poker in my hand was not as steady as my voice, I would like to blame the wine, not the fear.  
“The last time you asked that I nearly killed myself falling out of a tree.”  
I stopped upon the stair. My eyes grew wide.  
“Kaarey zhou?” I asked.  
“It’s not pronounced that way. And that’s not my name.’ the voice replied, with a weary snigger.  
I reached the top of the stair. He was sitting on my Mother’s bed, cross-legged and barefoot. His grey eyes twinkled like points of light in the otherwise dim room, sparkling from beneath a wicked fringe of blue grey locks.  
“Who *are* you?” I asked in wonderment, though in all truth I recognised my first boyhood crush. One hand on the Poker, the other on the stair rail so as to not tumble over. He was as unalike me as any person could be. Where he was wiry and lean, I was tall and heavy from farm labours. He was spry, an agile climber and tumbler from rooves. I was lame. He was small and fragile, while I loomed like a behemoth, armed against my intruder who offered himself meekly. But he was here. And he was almost too beautiful to look at.  
“My Name, is Tomas.” He said, his eyes were sad and he sagged as if weary from some great burden. “My mother is also dead. May I stay here?”  
I paused. “Why….” But he had toppled forward, and red oozed from under his threadbare clothes.  
I nursed him through the night. He had been beaten, I think, and grazed by something wickedly sharp, his ribs criss-crossed by parallel cuts and while the wounds were not deep, they were numerous. I stripped him of his outerwear to tend him and spent more time than I should have washing and tending his wounds. As the sun rose, I met Jenny by the door and made my vague excuses for not joining her this day before returning to his bedside to eat and watch over him. No doubt I must have dozed off, in fact I recall with some clarity a handful of times I woke with a start in my chair. On the fifth occasion of this, my opened eyes met his. The sun had started to set, and red light trickled through the window shutters, and he was looking at me. Watching me sleep, as I had been watching him.  
“You are Ryann?” he asked  
“And you are Tomas.” I replied.  
The silence rushed to fill the space between us, our eyes did not break contact.  
“I...I think I need you Ryann. If you don’t find that too forward a thing.”  
I blinked. “Need me..?”  
“I need assistance. Men have killed my Mother” He paused to catch something in his throat.  
”Powerful and well informed men. They will come for me and do me ill before they kill me. And I have a job to do. One I don’t want to.”  
He sat upright, the sheet falling away from his slender torso, his smooth and perfect skin marred only by my tender ministrations with needle and thread.  
“And I need someone to give me the courage to do what I need to do.’  
To say that I was torn is an understatement. I had made a man out of myself despite my loss and infirmity. I had a life, and I knew this easterner boy was not only trouble, but trouble of an otherworldly kind. But my beautiful prince sat half naked, draped in a sheet upon my mother’s bed, his features cast in amber from the dying of the day and my heart became as that of a young boy again.  
“Why me though?” I asked.  
“Because I have seen it.” He replied with surety, his head cocked to the side. His lips smiled wryly but his eyes reflected sadness and pain. “And… because you have been on my mind. Ever since the Orchard”  
I blushed a little. “I thought you were a possum that day”  
“Well My Mother was a witch. I may have been a possum at the time.”  
“Were you?”  
“You’ll never know” he whispered in my face. How had he moved so close?  
And then his kissed me, and my mind was made up. Greater adventures had started with less.

The better part of the week passed while he healed. I worked, half-heartedly and fitfully. I sold off the chickens and gave away our donkey. Everything I made I spent on provisions. New boots, food that would last for an extended trip. Anything I could buy or barter for. I was tempted to sell the farm, but Tomas cautioned me against it, claiming that I would need somewhere to return to when this was all over. I got upset that he spoke of ‘Me’ returning, rather than ‘Us’ returning. Instead, I informed my neighbour, Jenny’s uncle, that I was going to be absent for a few weeks, and offered him the farm while I was gone. He was more than happy to look after it, and asked no questions I could not bluff through.  
The nights were spent in each other’s arms. Just holding at first, and then as he healed we got more adventurous. More exploratory. He would yield under my touch as I clumsily caressed him, never knowing if I hurt him where his wounds were still unhealed or if the little noises he made were more from pleasure. Tomas spent all his time recuperating in Mothers room, Now, I guess, Our room, although not for very much longer. His presence was everywhere in the house though. Fires lit easily and burned more warmly than they should, leaving a soft, Smokey flavour to everything we ate and in the air we breathed.  
When he was fit for travel, we snuck out of the house in the dead of night, like thieves I thought, but he corrected me. “Like vagabonds” he said. “Our time in this place has come and gone and we must like the tides move along. You and I no longer fit in this place, and I for one have never belonged.”  
‘I have lived every moment in this village. In this house even. I’m Not *sad* to be leaving…I’m just…’ I was lost for words. Thankfully, Tomas had them for me.  
‘You feel a duty. You feel like you owe it something.’ I looked at him and mutely nodded. He placed his tiny hand against my chest and pressed it there before continuing. ‘*This* is your greatest duty now. Not this place. Not these people. Not your family, who have all left you now. Not even me. You have the greatest duty to your heart.’ He leaned in close, standing on his toes to bring his face closer to mine. Before I could kiss him he asked ‘where does *this* want to be?’  
‘Next to yours.’ I replied. Instantly and without thinking. He kissed my nose quickly and with a smile said, “well. It’s walking this way.’ And started walking off  
He was right, of course. I had lived on the farm all my life, watching my brother and sister leave for bigger brighter things. Watching my mother get sick one autumn, only to pass before spring. I wasn’t living, I was existing. I was always waving goodbye to someone. Now all I had was Jenny. And I lacked the stomach to make her wave goodbye to me.  
“Will I belong in the place we are going?”  
He paused to look at me with his devilish half smile. “You’ll never know” he said after a fashion. “You’ll never know for sure until you’ve been there” and I could not doubt him.  
We took backroads and went overland for several days. It was hard going, and I would have loved to have taken horses from the farm, but none would let Tomas approach. I thought it was his smell at first, which was to me that of roasted nuts, subtle until my face was buried in his neck where it would become intoxicating. He explained that it was the curse of the sorcerer borne that no animal would abide anyone with sorcerer blood.  
‘Even people hate us, to some degree, but they can never quite say why.’  
‘I don’t hate you.’  
‘Maybe it’s because you’re special. Or Because I’m attracted to you right back. Or maybe I bewitched you.’ He said devilishly.  
‘You can do that?’  
He stopped and looked at me, as if I had asked him if he were a chicken. Confused and amused, his head tilting to the left to look at me askance.  
‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, taking my hand. ‘I can only do fire well. You are the one with the bewitching ass.’  
He stole supplies from a local store so as to ease the burden on our woodsmanship as we crossed the Valewood, the last edges of the Kings’ forest and spent a full week subsisting on the remainder of out pilfered foodstuffs. Our lovemaking was tender and gentle during this time, bodies pressed together as if to draw out the touch of each other’s flesh and we awoke each morning in each other’s arms. It was beastly cold, but we never lacked for a fire, his darkened eyes and a muttered “Kareyzhu” took care of that. When the supplies ran out and we were forced to rely on our meagre survival skills, he used more words that I could not quite hear, as if some syllables were pitched to an ear that was not human. And his secret syllables dropped fortune into our laps with a frequency that suggested more than chance was in play. When we hungered, we feasted on our passions under the boughs of ancient elm. When we starved, we ate from forest bounty that simply sprung into our laps but our nights were less rapturous.  
It was in a period of deep deprivation that I sought to query Tomas on his sinister skills. He was evasive at first, deflecting questions with a shy look and some gentle flirting, which I found very flattering. He would even prompt me into reciting some very amateurish poetry. But I insisted, for flattery aside, I could see his evasiveness and my hunger made disguising my curiosity and impatience much more difficult.  
“It’s in my blood” he said, when he at last responded to my insistent probing. “Blood is made of water and minerals and iron and full of tiny little things that live but do not live. A Long time ago, in the time of my ancestors, ancestors, they learnt to scrawl messages in the blood as the heart pumps the blood through the body, it recites these words.”  
‘Like a prayer.’ I interjected, but this only caused him to frown.  
‘Like a *mantra*’ He corrected. ‘The repetition weakens natural laws and allows something more…liberal to take place’  
“So you can do anything?”  
‘No.’ and with this he was sad, and turned away from me. I did not mind the view of his naked back at all, and in this moment was tempted to press against it and rest my chin upon his shoulder. But he continued. “The great elders could do *anything*, but blood dilutes over time. Non sorcerers intermingle their blood with ours as we marry and breed. The bloodlines grow weak…” he trailed off. I had given in to my urges and moved behind him, my lips a mere breath from his ear, my fingers wafting through his ruffled hair. I pressed my body into his and our hips moved together.  
‘I can make fire…reliably’ His voice faltering as my lips brushed his neck softly. His body arched, pressing against mine. ‘But everything…else has some cost…some…strain.’  
I will admit that the conversation on the subject was shelved at that point and we dealt with more pressing matters. 

We emerged from the wood a mere shade before winter was due to arrive, and the cold air was bitter each day. We were treated with the sight of sprawling but fortified farm houses, with a walled edifice standing out many miles to the East.  
‘This is the way we must head’ Tomas said. ‘You need to clean up, and we desperately need supplies. And I need to find a man.’  
‘What man’ I asked, for I had presumed that this was *our* journey.  
‘A swordsman. A drunkard. A Pallbearer.’  
‘That’s fairly vague’  
He turned his head and smiled his lopsided grin. ‘That is the nature of prophesy my dear. Clues, not truth. The gods don’t want us knowing the ending. It would ruin the whole story of life’  
‘I didn’t think Easteners believed in the Gods’  
‘My mother was the easterner. I was born on the road, and I’ll believe in anything if there’s profit to be made.”  
“A belief of convenience is hollow faith” I said reciting scripture.  
‘You’re going to quote your holy book to me? A witch childe and firestarter?’ He grinned broadly at this. He was too amused at the irony. Or possibly the Heresy. ‘What does you book say about cavorting with Devil-Boys?’  
“That it chains our souls to anchors and drags us under water.”  
He took my hands in his. Such fragile things. You would never believe such soft hands were so adept and climbing and scuttling. ‘and what does it say about, cavorting, with boys in general’ he said with wicked mirth.  
‘It….’ I stumbled over the words and then settled into a frown. I yanked my hands away. ‘I think we shouldn’t talk about that.’  
I was sullen for the rest of the trip. I had always been told to love freely and honestly, and any affection spent on Jenny was a constraint and was essentially dishonest. Were I open about my preferences in public, I would have to suffer the scorn of others. I hated the situation and I doubted my faith. But I was most of all disgusted and ashamed of my cowardice. I spent many hours that day walking in silence, resisting every urge to make eye contact with Tomas. His muffled sobbing conveyed all his pain, and his quiet footfalls told me of how close behind me he walked, not outpacing the cripple.  
Close enough to hold his hand if I wanted. I should have taken his hand. But I didn’t.  
We reached the walled town of Whythe before nightfall, and entered separately, both claiming to be ‘weary travellers’ who would be on our way after daybreak. Softly we met up again inside the walls and quietly spoke our apologies to each other.  
‘I’m sorry. I’m an asshole’  
He manufactured a smile ‘You are sorry you are an asshole?’  
‘No…I…You Know what I mean’  
‘It’s Ok.’  
‘I know but….This is…all so Difficult.’  
“What’s Difficult? Adventure? Travel...Love?’  
He tried to stroke my face but I jerked away. I did not want us to be seen.  
‘Are you ashamed?’  
‘…..’  
He laughed as my cheeks turned red, Holding my face he said ‘Love *IS* difficult. It’s very, very hard. If it were easy everyone would be doing it.’  
I let out a laugh. Nothing joyful, more a release of relief. He patted my cheek.  
‘Come. I need you to get us somewhere to stay. He pointed at the nearest pub.  
‘Where will you be?’  
‘Earning my keep’ he said with a hop and a wink and then he left, presumably to pilfer the pockets of the drunks elsewhere. After all that time in the wood, we deserved our beds at last.  
The Pub was filled with loud and merry crowd. Drunk early and aspiring to the lofty heights of ‘rabble’. A good half were soldiers, which I did not please me at all, and if I had not been waiting for Tomas I would have chosen another dive to squat in. The soldiers were the primary cause of the noise, and the sole cause for my disquiet. Soldiers had taken both my brother and my eldest sister in their recruiting drives. And while I never cared too greatly for my brother, I had always cherished the company of Elspeth, my sister. She who could climb higher, swim faster and carry more than any boy, especially her crippled little brother. But I never got pity from her. I got a helping hand when I needed it, help with chores when I asked for it, and advice on girls whether I wanted it or not. Never a truer friend did I have when growing up. War made children into soldiers. And soldiers turned children into fodder.  
So I was genuinely surprised to hear my sister speak.  
Her voice was loud. Commanding and forthright. As I focused in on the sound of her voice, I made out more distinct words. Like ‘Carnage’, ‘Ogre’ and ‘Field charge.’  
I moved toward the sound, and as the sea of faces parted I lay eyes upon the speaker. My sister Elspeth.  
She was clad in soldiers garb, Nice and clean, cheaply made but religiously maintained He strawberry hair was braided tightly, but as she was never the most comfortable with grooming, a corona of stray hairs jutted out from her scalp, granting her the appearance of a moulting lion. A scar ran from her forehead, and directly downwards, across her eyebrow, her freckled cheek and lip. And she was smiling. Happy. And from all accounts she seemed to be in command of these men, holding rank upon her sleeve, though I will confess I know nothing of the ranks of soldiery and could not fathom her markings.  
She was looking at me. Her smile dissolved as we locked eyes. “It’s rude to stare boy.” She said, unclipping the fastener that held her sword in place. “Do you want trouble?’  
The pub had gone much quieter, and all the soldiers’ eyes were upon me. I remained confused, and then I remembered that I had neither changed clothes, nor bathed nor shaved for several weeks now. She had not laid eyes on my in over two years and I now I resembled not so much her brother, but some wild hill man, or beggar. I missed her, but I could not face her. So I muttered an apology and limped away before the boisterous laughter of the crowd resumed.

Tomas was waiting outside for me. H looked relaxed and happy, like a small child does when he’s gotten away with some form of mischief. In this instance, the mischief was a bulging coin purse to highlight his current swagger.  
‘Get Lucky?’ I asked, and then I blushed, as I realised how that sounded.  
He was quick to take the bait though ‘No…But I’m going to be.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Let’s get a room.’  
We bunked in the stables behind the Pub. Too many soldiers had taken residence and the rooms were double booked. The Publican didn’t mind us paying to sleep in hay, and if his raised eyebrow indicated he knew what we were going to be doing together, then his lips said nothing as he accepted our coin. The hay smelt earthy and fresh, and the stables themselves stank of horse dung, but we were under cover, for the first time in however long and it was a luxury to be inside.  
The foreplay was different too. No longer an informal prelude to some desperate coupling, we could take our time, and really take care of each other.  
He presented a blade, a fine folding knife, with brass handle embossed with long necked deer and a shiny metal blade. Tomas collected water and pulled his hair into a pony tail, turning his back to me.  
‘This is getting a bit long…You should probably do something about that.’ Running my fingers through his hair, the blue grey strands sliding across my hand, I pulled his hair high and tight and with my typical inelegant style, sawed through his wad of hair. I thanked the gods that the razor he had pilfered was so sharp, else I would had to hack away at his hair, which I am sure he would have found most uncomfortable. Loose strands cascaded down his naked shoulders, wafting gently like snowflakes. As I cleaned up wayward hairs, and kissed the back of his neck lightly, his hands held the bowl of water, which slowly came to a boil under the care of his magic. I then turned him around to trim his fringe but he stopped me.  
‘My turn’ he said, with a wolf like grin.  
‘But… the fringe.’ I countered  
‘It adds Mystique don’t you think? Eyes are windows to the soul. These windows have drapes.’  
He took the razor from my hand, and I was too dumfounded to protest  
‘I thought you liked my hair long.’  
‘I do…it’s just…..’ He grabbed my beard. ‘You were never meant to have this thing.’  
‘I think it’s manly’ I said playfully  
‘I think it’s rubbish.’ He dipped his hands into the water and then brought them to my face, massaging my chin, my jowls, and my cheekbones. And then he brought up the Razor.  
‘He was very firm but not rough. He held my chin and pulled it upwards to expose my neck. There was a pause as he doused the blade, and then I felt its steel press against my neck. Slowly but strongly he played the blade against my flesh, the sound like tearing parchment as he bit by bit whittled away my beard, moving to the cheeks, the jaw and the mouth, after each ministration planting the lightest of kisses upon the now shaven surface.  
When he was done, the hours had flown, and darkness had enshrouded us, with only the moonlight in which to gaze at one another. No more words were exchanged, eyes interlocked we undressed each other, pants unlacing and falling to the knees upon which we rested. I took his face in my hands and met his lips with mine, our mouths meeting and exploring with a slow burning passion. His hands explored my body, tracing spreading patterns on my torso as we wound his way slowly downwards until he found my erect member, urgently pressing against his belly. He gripped the shaft in one hand, and cupped my balls with the other, and the fact that I did not come right away is a small miracle at least. I broke off the kissing to gasp as he began working his hands along my length and he giggled before jerking his head forward and latching his teeth to my neck above the collarbone.  
I pushed him back. He was so slight that he fell back easily, pants and legs in the air. I finished the job of removing his breeches, hurling them over my shoulders, a movement made more awkward as my own were at my knees and my leg brace had to be unbuckled. I leant into him, parting his knees and gliding softly upwards, tracing my shaven cheek against his inner thigh, my breath pressing against his balls, I moved to his cock, a delicate member, resplendent and magnificent. Without finesse I wrapped my lips around the head and, locking eyes with him, slowly took in its length.  
‘No.’ he uttered softly, and then again with more conviction. I replaced my mouth with my hand, and squeezed, but did not otherwise jerk.  
‘No?’ I asked, a little playfully, but a little cautious as well.  
‘Please…’ he moaned ‘Be inside me.’ He bit his lower lip and would not meet my gaze. I feared he was ready to blow at any moment, even releasing pressure of his cock, I could feel the thrumming of impending orgasm. I tucked his knees together and rolled him to his side, where I spooned him, a difficult task while one removes one’s breeches. I wrapped my arms around him, holding his chest while his back pressed into mine, and entered him as gently as I could manage. Slowly and firmly, our hips rocking in unison, each thrust building upward and punctuated by his soft little moans, and my heavier deeper ones. As I neared climax, and I felt him approach, I moved my hand and grasped his cock, pulling him into me as I built up strength.  
He stopped breathing. An escaped gasp as he quivered. His eyes flew open and warmth splashed my hand. This was enough to push me over the edge as well as I came as well as he clenched and rocked.  
We lay panting for a while before we said anything. And that was just muted affection. The remaining water was used to clean up and we dressed against the chill and rolled into each other’s arms to sleep.

We awoke to the sounds of people entering the barn. Armoured people, the sound of heavy metal footsteps and the chinking of improperly laced chainmail. There were no sounds of swords slapping against metal though.  
Their swords were not sheathed.  
‘Sodomites!’ Cried the one in lead. ‘Bring yourselves out here to be judged by goodly folk!’  
‘Crap.’ I muttered quietly. I turned to look at Tomas. His eyes were wide and his face was white. I peeked through floorboards to look at the men gathered below.  
There were four figures, armoured and angry. It was hard to make out features in the near dark before dawn, but there was no mistaking their intent. Surely the publican had said something after all.  
Tomas and I quickly dressed to the sounds of men climbing ladders to our loft. We were unshod but otherwise covered as the first ‘knight’ made landing.  
‘Fornicators!’ He cried, his face an inhuman mask.  
I cried ‘Go’ for Tomas, who surely could scurry out through an open window with his grasping hands and his lanky limbs built for climbing, and did the stupidest thing I could think of.  
Hurling myself at the knight atop the ladder, a man off balance and hopefully unexpecting, I rammed him at full force and he and I toppled to the floor some 20 feet below. One of my ribs cracked upon impact, and my friend was winded by the fall and my weight pressing upon him at the same time. I tried to stand but some heavy weight came crashing into the back of my head, and it swam. I rolled off and took another one to the face and further to the chest, robbing me of breath. There were swords drawn, and blood in my eyes, but looking upward I could see an angel with grey blue hair, one that didn’t know what ‘Go’ meant when I said it.  
‘Kareyzhu!’ he uttered, with a word that stopped time, a word I could hear over the din of metal shod feet slamming into my body. One knight screamed as his armour began to glow hot. Hay scorched and took to flame which lanced from bale to bale.  
‘Kareyzhu!’ Again. And knights turned their eyes upward. ‘Sorcerer!’ one cried as he reached for the ladder. Horses shrieked in their stalls and the flames licked higher. I lunged and grasped futilely at the climbers leg. I was kicked in the head, but daren’t let go.  
‘Kareyzhu!’ and the flames turned red. Stalls broke open and the horses panicked, as they trampled out to escape the unnatural blaze and the unnatural man upstairs. The knight wrestling with his scorching armour disappeared under a hail of hooves. The other two evacuated with the all the speed that terror can equip a man.  
I received another kick to the face. So I reached up, for my grip and strength was faltering, and razor in hand I found the back of his knee, unarmoured, and sliced through the muscles and tendons there. He fell onto me, screaming until his head caught on fire.  
Weakly I stood, as the fires ravaged the building and the air turned too hot to breathe without gasping. Tomas dropped lithely to the floor next to me, his presence pressing the flame away from us. The barn doorway was barred though, assembled townsfolk and local soldier had gathered there.  
As had my sister. Elspeth was standing in uniform at the threshold, held back only by the flames, wicked mace in hand and eyes full of recognition. My beard gone, my face was much more familiar to her. Tomas paid her no mind however, and I was too weak to do more than stare mutely on.  
We made our way to the back of the barn, amidst the flames and the smoke, where I bore my shoulder against a weakened back wall forcing timbers aside with my weight and what strength I could muster without the use of my leg brace. Shoeless, we hobbled away with as much speed a tiny sorcerer and a crippled man could muster.

As much as we should have been easily hunted down and slain, a burning barn adjacent to an affluent pub has the curious quality of distracting many people and sowing an appropriate amount of chaos to be considered fortuitous for us. We could not go far of course. I was wounded and already a cripple, and he was exhausted from his magic and was scarcely strong enough to carry a sack of potatoes much less myself. We found ourselves down an alley so strewn with detritus that it would take a squad of men hours to scour and then we rested. I closed my eyes for but a moment…

…and it was dark again. Had I slept through the day? My face was throbbing, and my knees were shot, and every breath felt like I was being perforated by some unseen assailant. I was covered in rags and an apple lay before me. Tomas was nowhere to be seen. I feebly called his name and I heard movement out of my line of sight. I passed out again.

The second time I awoke, it was still dark, or it had turned dark yet again. I was bandaged but otherwise naked, and was lying on a rough cot. I could not see from my right eye but I was able to see in the dim light details of my surroundings. I was in a smithy. I have seen enough of them in my lifetime, as I can make a leg brace from wood and leather, but buckles require a craftsman. No one was in attendance that I could see, but the forge was hot. It immediately made me think of Tomas. I tried to sit.  
‘You don’t want to do that friend’ came a voice from the far side of the room. But his warning came too late as a thousand glass splinters tore off in my lung.  
‘Hurts don’t it’ came the voice again. A drawl that sounded like bad ale pouring over broken rocks. ‘You got yourself a broken rib there friend. I pity you for that, but you should know. You got off lightly.’  
‘Who are you…where… ?’  
‘My Name is Bressler. And you are in my shop. And men with broken ribs should save their breath until they’ve got it back, or they have nothing else to give.’ Movement at the other side of the room. My vision still swimming. A large mountain of a man lurches into view as he lays a bowl of soup by my cot.  
‘It’s hot mind you.’ He said. ‘So I’s be recommending you wait a bit before imbibing.’  
He was a bear of a man. Though it was hard to judge how tall he was, he certainly dwarfed the chamber we were in. Black hair, black beard. A mane of frizzy black mane surrounded his face like a corona of shadow. He wore black fur as well, just to confuse the issue, though there was a glint of metal beneath, some chain or metal studs. His breath washed over me, granting the impression of an old distillery, vile as it was.

He left the room by the only door I could see and did not return until much later. After I had choked down the soup. He was in the presence of Tomas when he did arrive, and my heart leapt.  
‘Tomas!’ I cried greeting him. I sat upwards, the relief drowning out the stabbing pain.  
He shushed me, with a word, a word I could feel as much as hear, and I sagged.  
‘So,’ said Bressler, the faint touch of Mirth gracing his voice. ‘An ass pirate and a Sorcerer as well.’  
‘You don’t mind?’  
‘What? The buggery or the blasphemy?’  
‘Either. Both.’  
‘Can’t say I care, as long as you have gold to pay.’  
‘We do. And more than gold.’ I normally loved it when Tomas would get playful with his language, but it seemed out of place in this negotiation.  
‘There isn’t much more in life than gold.’  
‘How about vengeance?’  
Bressler paused when he heard this. His brown eyes glassed over for a moment. With a whipping motion he took one great step and grasped Tomas by the throat, lifting him off the ground as his other hand groped for a knife.  
I scrambled quickly, rolled out of the cot over the good knee, wincing when the bad knee struck the pavers. I snagged a hot chisel from the piles of tools, it was closest to hand and looked sharp enough, and forced myself upwards to place it at Bressler’s throat. 

He paused ‘Sorcerer….tell your boyfriend I’m going to make him eat that in a minute.’  
‘I’ll slit you open if you don’t take your hands off him’  
‘Son, it’s a fucking chisel.’ His elbow tapped me lightly in the ribs and I went down.  
‘It’s OK.’ Rasped Tomas struggling against the giant’s grip. ‘It’s really OK.’  
I stayed down. To his Credit Bressler lowered Tomas to the ground, but kept his hand, relaxed this time, up against his throat.  
‘You wouldn’t be the first Wordsworker I’ve put into the ground.’ Bressler’s voice was icy, but not cruel. ‘Who exactly do you think I need Vengeance for anyway?’  
Tomas’s eyes watered. He gagged a little on the dryness of his throat. ‘Abigail.’  
The mighty hand released its grip, its power robbed as if denied fuel and force. ‘How do you know that name Wordsworker?’  
‘My mother’s blood is Prophets Blood. My mother’s killer is your Abigail’s killer. I can feel their presence, and I know where they are going to be. I intend to be there.’  
They locked eyes for a moment. Red eyes rimmed with tears. Bressler’s held in with a mighty will, while Tomas’s flowed unchecked.  
‘Will you join us?’  
Bressler’s arm fell slack against his body. In an instant it was if he had somehow shrunken. This bear of a man, cast from iron and hammered into monstrous ferocity, had been quelled by a simple honest words from my beautiful angel. Not even one of his stores of magic words, just promises, loaded with implication.  
Without a word of his own, Bressler strode to his tool chest, and cast aside tarpaulins and rusty tools until he withdrew a single wrapped blade.  
‘When do we leave?’  
And thus Bressler came into our service. A Pallbearer, Drunkard and now swordsman.

Four days of magical ministration and boiling unidentified soup saw me fit for travel. In those few days I was denied my lovers touch and had to satisfy myself with his eyes, and the soft, elfin voice that carried his words through the air like migrating swallows. Bressler was, eager to travel, and was impatient while I rested.  
‘Wordsworker!’ he would cry out. ‘The town is full of Soldiers, hungry for the blood of arsonist sodomites. Can we not just fix him and leave?’  
‘I am sorry I cannot mend his flesh and bone at a speed greater than ‘miraculous’!’ Tomas would reply. ‘Fire is my forte, and outside of that all magic is costly.  
‘I would pay that cost to speed us on our Journey.’  
‘The cost may prevent the journey completely.’ He pointed at me, as if I were a thing. ‘Look. The words that make him...’ he looked at me, and his anger melted for a moment before he could remember himself. ‘… His words are written already. I can’t change one without altering a thousand. And each change whittles a little piece of my soul away.’ His hand reached for mine. ‘I don’t have as much of it left as I could.’  
My cheeks burned. Though not said, I knew it was because he had given some of it to me.  
Bressler busied himself, when not making furtive plans with Tomas, by rebuilding my Brace. ‘A cripple, has no place on foot. And a Sorcerer has no place on a horse. This is going to be a very long walk.’  
It was truth that he spoke of course. Tomas was always very poor with animals. They were…uneasy with him. It made him a woeful hunter. Thank the gods that he had magic to overcome that or our journey through the woods would have met with starvation. Hunters eventually finding our intertwined corpses after snowmelt one spring. I knew why of course. Most of what he said, his words of power, were hammered out by his heart. These words, constantly repeated as long as his heart beat, were not out loud per se, but rather too high, or too low for mortal men to hear. But animals were always very canny, and their superior hearing would always detect the ‘emanations’ of a sorcerer.  
Our leaving on the fourth day was quiet, and as a group we grimly slipped out before dawn, in a move that reminded me of the very beginning of this trek.  
Bressler’s knowledge of Horses and sorcerers was not the limit of his expertise. He knew a great many things about them, all while clinging to the pretence of ignorance and apathy on the subject. We moved briskly, and in the company of the giant Bressler, we were not hassled upon the road. We could not make love in his presence though, no matter how deeply asleep we thought he may be, but we would snatch tiny moments of care wherever possible, locking fingers as well walked, sharing little looks laced with meaning and brimming with promise. We could even share little morsels of food, slipping delicate bites of rabbit or pheasant into each other’s mouths while we ate. And we did eat well, for among his many talents, Bressler was a superb huntsman, as long as we stayed well out of his way.  
If he minded, Bressler never stated it, though he did ask us to ‘get a room’ on more than one occasion. Around the campfire we were just ‘traveller’s’ to him. We shared food and ale, and stories all around the campfire. A campfire that never needed to be tended or fed was useful indeed.  
We had been over a week on the road when the mountains began to swim into view.  
‘Barrefort’ Bressler muttered to us that evening, referring to the rocky cliffs ahead.  
I knew of Barrefort, but only by rumour. It was held by dwarves in ancient times, dwarves who were corrupted and turned insane by their love of carved runes, and that Barrefort was littered with the bones of those fallen to greed and depravity. It was a horrible little fairy tale I was taught at church growing up. The priest had been a soldier before his conversion, and would weave a lot of war stories with holy script as to lend an air of portentousness to his pulpit. Of course no one believed in dwarves, though Runes sounded a lot like the magic Tomas used.  
‘It is and it isn’t.’ Replied my love as we snuggled that night. ‘Dwarves were a curious people. Hill dwellers and wild men who lived alone and in caves for far too long, they found revelation in darkness. At one point they were probably men, or something that would become men. But generations below ground made them wary of the sky. My people used to know them. Used to show them magic. But they lacked our blood, and were too far gone to even breed with us as to produce sorcerous offspring. But they were very crafty. They would mimic our words on a very large scale. Instead of carving it into the walls of their hearts, they would carve it on their walls and run their blood through the marks. This would make magic, of a sort. But it made them mad. Already a greedy people, magic made them more so. And they fought, and died. And I suppose they died out. Or have separated and gone into seclusion.’ His voice trailed off with a hint of sadness. His body sagged inside my arms and I pulled him close, kissing the crown of his head.  
After time he continued. ‘I never met one of course. My mother’s mother’s mother did, and left the memory in her blood for her descendants. My mother passed it to me, and all her prophesy, when she died.’  
‘So how many memories are you carrying that aren’t yours?’  
‘Too many.’ Sometimes I’m lost in my own blood.’  
Bressler spit into the fire. It drew our attention and he pointed at us with his eating knife. ‘Sorcerers!’ He snarled. ‘It’s always about the blood. Hearts and blood. Blood and hearts. If you cannot kill one, make him bleed. All it takes is a scratch. A little lost blood takes the fight right out of Wordsworkers. Makes them weak. Magically and physically.’  
He flipped his knife over, catching it deftly by the blade with his greasy fingers. ‘Mind you, you have to hit a vein. You nick an artery, well then….all the magic in the heart comes racing out. Words are fresh then.’  
He looked at us thought the fire. His eyes reflecting not the here and now but someplace far away.  
‘Abigail once told me that some sorcerers will slit themselves to let their magic gush from them. Exploding like a burning oil barrel. Like a last ditch effort. We used to confiscate any small blades Sorcerers would carry. Later, we had to pull out fingernails. And teeth. It was messy, but you could tell…you could tell who were the dangerous ones were, the ones who were ready to die like that. They wore armour with gaps to expose their flesh, and carried wicked little glass knives. And their powers were hot like lightning, so when it spilled out, it would destroy anyone nearby.’  
He fed himself another shank of rabbit. His voice lilted with a dream like quality. Devoid of feeling, but subtly evocative. Like a man talking in his sleep.  
‘Abigail wasn’t dangerous. I swear, we used a divining rod on her and it could register nothing, though she once told me that they were unreliable when surrounded by so many sorcerers at once. But she was in their company when we took their camp. I was young then. And she was beautiful. Even after the soldiers beaten her and taken her teeth, she was, somehow unbroken. Through bleeding gums she begged me… to just kill her. My ‘Brothers’ said she had bewitched me, but without teeth she couldn’t have used her words properly. I snuck in to their cage with a carving knife that night as my brothers slept. Her cousin, also captured in our raid, took it from her and asked me to take her with me. So I stood on a hill overlooking my camp, with this woman in my arms, while below the prisoners erupted into eldritch balefire.’  
We were deadly silent at his confession. His eyes refocussed and his gruff tone returned. ‘You needed to know that. You need to know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that I loved that woman for all her years. And you needed to know what sort of people we are going to be up against. They will call themselves soldiers, or even Knights errant, but they are rapists and slavers.’  
‘We follow them. Don’t we.’ I asked  
‘….’ Tomas was silent.  
‘We do.’ Replied Bressler. ‘He,’ he pointed to Tomas, ‘has people in Barrefort. Don’t you! And we’re sneaking up behind them? Why. Shouldn’t we have rushed ahead and warned them?’  
‘They wouldn’t have listened. And those that did would not have escaped. The soldier amass outside the way in. Camped outside the gates as it were.’  
‘I thought we were going to help your people?’ I asked.  
‘This *IS* helping. This is tactical. It’s why we brought a warrior.’  
‘How is this going to help? We are but three men! I’m a cripple carpenter for fucks sake!’  
He took my hand.  
‘You are my love, and my heart’ Tomas retorted, squeezing my hand firmly, ‘And I cannot go without you.’ The tears welled in his eyes, but turned to steam, as his heart beat and summoned the fire.  
‘We will die if we take on a thousand soldiers’  
‘There’s not a thousand men alive who know how to fight sorcerers properly. And we aren’t going to fight them all. We could win this with a single well placed stroke of a blade’  
‘Is this more prophesy?’  
‘A Little. The words get weaker the more we stray from them. I was given a glimpse of the future. My mother’s memory of her view. I cannot see what happens when we change it.’  
Breaking the argument, Bressler chimed in.  
‘We need to sleep. It’s going to be an early day tomorrow.’ He stood between us but looked at me, his eyes glowered, and his shoulders were set against me. ‘maybe we should all sleep…separately tonight.’  
I backed off and slept alone for the first time in months, heart hurting with each shuddering beat. I could hear Tomas crying softly in the night but I did not rise to comfort him.  
In the morning though, he was curled up in my arms, his head nestled in my chest, and I thought that all would be right.  
In the morning we had a silent meal and left the road. By day, as we walked we discussed the plan. A secret pass in the hills leading to an old dwarven chokepoint that we could collapse. It seemed simple enough to me, just a carpenter, but Bressler questioned every little detail, even stopping to clarify the plan where possible. By late evening, we had made it to the cliffs upon which sprawled an ancient stone building. It resembled some sort of insect hive rather than a home for men. Though massive, it flowed over its terrain rather than look constructed, and if not for the presence of windows and banners flying I would have seen it only as mud congealing on the Cliffside.  
The soldier’s camp was visible as well. Two dozen or more canopy tents stood erect, and the fires of a military camp were alight. Soldiers were visible, even amassed at this distance.  
‘We know the plan’ whispered Tomas, as if soldier could somehow hear us this far away. ‘Bressler and Ryann sneak through the canyon pass to the dwarven redoubt. From there you will find a room filled with Bronze gears and turning cogs. Disable the cogs, and the hillside will fall, burying all those in the canyon.’  
‘That sounds simple enough’ said Bressler ‘what about my reward then?’  
Tomas shot him a sad look, and then another to me. ‘The one you seek carries your wife’s hair in a knot on their belt. You won’t be able to miss them. They will be among the forward scouts. If the pair of you move carefully, at Ryan’s pace, you will miss them, and they will die when the canyon comes down.’  
‘Avalanche? No…I’m going to gut the murderous motherfucker. I want their blood splashing on my face. I’m not going to bury them. I need revenge. Not Justice.’  
‘If you go down that road then you will die.’  
‘I’m already dead where it counts! Ghosts like me don’t want balance. We want blood. ‘ He spat upon the ground and turned to leave. ‘I would have thought a sorcerer would understand’  
We watched him leave, scrambling up jagged rocks.  
‘You need to go with him.’ Tomas finally said. ‘He can’t avoid the trap that’s waiting.’  
‘There’s a trap?’ I asked in concern  
‘Yes. He can trigger it. You cannot.’  
‘I cannot?’ I asked but he only smiled a pained and forced smile that never met the sadness in his grey eyes.  
‘No.’  
“How am I immune?’  
‘By Blood…’ he said touching my cheek. ‘Always by blood.’  
‘And you are not coming?’  
‘No…I have things I must do after the canyon collapses.’  
‘Such as?’  
He chuckled, and brushed aside my fringe before kissing me on the forehead.  
“You’ll never know.’  
‘I think this is important you know.’  
‘Very important indeed. But you have to go before Bressler ruins everything.’  
I looked at him, and the pain in my face was reflected in his own grey eyes.  
‘I…’  
‘Come back to me lover. I’ll be waiting’  
I left him to his devices, and prayed with the utmost of my remaining faith that he would be safe when I returned.

You would think it difficult for a cripple to navigate broken rocks and hidden Cliffside paths. It is true I had one really bad leg, but my arms were strong and farm work is much more demanding than a simple climb. Though I was not as fast as a whole man, I was not unable to scramble amongst the cliff side and through the myriad of gully’s crossing the face. Despite my aches, and the lack of vision in my right eye, for It had never healed after all, I managed to crawl my way through to the hidden hold so painstakingly described by Tomas.  
It was a series of chambers spun from molten rock and sedimented at right angles to the ground, connected to each other and ringed with, what I could only describe as, bronze mechanisms. Wheels sunk into walls, pistons turning in place. I found Bressler in the final room, standing amidst corpses, and battling an armoured foe with hair braids twisted into their waistband. I hid, for I was no warrior, as the blindness in my eye could attest.  
Bressler fought with a broken sword, and was oozing blood across the floor at a rate that spoke of how little fight he must have left. Like a smith, he hammered at the knight’s defences, slamming blow after blow in rapid succession against their own sword, raised defensively. He fought with such little grace, but with such ferocity that it were not so much a duel of warriors, but an endurance trial. one a bleeding man was sure to lose.  
The endgame came swiftly enough. The knight swiftly kicked Bressler in the chest and turned their blade upwards for an offensive blow. My expertise in Combat was always ever charge in, and so I did. Slamming the knight into a wall, but rebounding and falling. The Knight righted themselves and whirled upon me, raising blade on high before pausing.  
After a pause, and a lowered sword, my sister raised her helmet and uttered ‘Ryann?’  
And a pause is all Bressler needed to finish the job.  
It was like slow motion. My beloved sister, clad in confusion looking at me with her furrowed brow. Upon her waist was braids of rope, made from off cuts of human hair. My sister was not only Killing Sorcerers, but taking trophies. Not so different than me after all I mused, as I had kept a single lock of Tomas’ hair. But I doubt this was for the same purpose.  
And then Bressler thundered into view, carrying himself and my sister into the mass of churning gears  
Oh how I cursed my leg at that moment. This crippled, weak useless appendage. I cursed the horse that trod on it, and I curse the Gods for letting it happen. I stumbled, clumsily and slow towards them, as they were pulled into the gears. My sisters screams echoing with Bresslers rage. I reached out to grasp my sister’s hand, and for a while she held, but as I was pulled into the gears myself, she spoke to me with blood-flecked lips a single word.  
‘Traitor’  
And then I let her slip into the gears, and lost her again.

When the gears stopped finally, perhaps as they were choked with chewed up flesh and shattered pieces of armour, a rumble was triggered elsewhere and the cacophony of falling rocks filled the air with such a noise that it were as if my skull itself were exploding. I sat, however, uncaring for the devastation, amidst the blooded churned up corpses, and the blood still congealing on the walls.  
I was found, insensate, by soldiers, perhaps hours later. I know not what happened soon after, but I came to my senses in a soldier’s camp trussed up against a pole and missing my leg brace.  
Some thirty feet away lay Tomas. He had been clad in mismatched leather plates (to cover arteries but to expose veins) and bound with cotton cords soaked with salt (to ward of evil).  
They had taken his eyes. And his teeth. A patina of dried blood spackled his face giving him a hollowed look. My heart exploded and I screamed unbidden and unrestrained until the soldiers gagged me.  
I longed to touch him, to wash his hair, I burned, and the tears in my good eye flashed like fire in me. I struggled and writhed until I could move no more, and then I sobbed well into the night.  
He spoke to me. He was quiet, and lucid, and his words were slurred with missing teeth and cut lips flecked with blood and spittle.  
‘Bressler must have died after all.’ He said. ‘I told him to be smart. He should have followed…the plan. .’  
‘Life,’ he continued through bloody gums, ‘has a script. You don’t *have* to follow it, but it’s … hard… to disobey if you are ignorant. That’s the misfortune… of soothsayers and prophets. Knowing your future…harms it‘  
‘Mother saw two futures. She passed them…to me before your…sister killed her.’ His voice was raspy and hollow. Had he eyes they would have been weeping. I wept enough for both of us.  
I knew it of course, as he said it. With Bressler alive we could have rescued him. I would not have had to see my sister die.  
“Shut it demonspawn’ came the voice of our Guard. He approached and slapped Tomas with the back of his gauntlet. ‘Your time comes.’  
I screamed through the gag, my words inarticulate and muffled. A second guard, out of sight struck me with something solid. And I reeled.  
‘Filthy beast’ he spat out, and punctuated his distaste with a further strike. One of my teeth came loose and my mouth filled with the taste of copper, my spittle mixed with blood and drained out though my part open mouth  
Tomas could hear everything, and blinded and beaten he could still rouse anger. He cried impotently outwards, and even toothless and bound with salt, I could feel his heat rush outwards, the beating of his heart tapping out ‘Kareyzhu’. He called out syllables but could not form the word  
I tried to struggle to my feet, or at least my knees, but was knocked back down. My guard drew a knife and pressed it to my throat. I struggled in pain and my guard said with wicked grin “what’s the matter…I thought you liked pricks?’  
And in a then I realised what had to be done. Not a revelation, but a slow awakening. Alone, Tomas could do nothing but sit helplessly and await execution. Something slow, that kept his racing, raging sorcerous blood from spewing.  
But there was another way to break his heart. And I knew it, he knew it.  
Because we shared his soul.  
I Pushed into the blade and jerked to the side. My hot blood shot from the throat and washed over my captor. It sizzled as Tomas screamed.  
The fire avoided me at first, so I got to see everything with my one good eye. Tomas lit up, not with a bit of his magic for a bit of a cost, but a lot of magic, at the greatest cost. Around him men and mounts caught ablaze and in the centre of it all was my Tomas. My beautiful, beautiful burning angel. My Thief of Apples, my dearest friend and beloved prophet.  
I was spared the blaze so I could watch him save his people.  
He was fire itself. He coursed through the air, filling it with his life, and every beat of his heart lit the night sky, turning it into flashes of dawn. And then like any fire, it sputtered and died.  
And that was an end.


End file.
